Existing pulp and paper industry utilizes wood as a raw material in order to manufacture pulp, paper, paperboard, and other cellulose-based products. Environmental impact generated by such manufacturing of pulp and paper results mainly from wood pulping and pulp bleaching, wherein in existing pulping processes, sulfur compounds and nitrogen oxides are emitted to the air, and during pulp bleaching, chlorinated and organic compounds and nutrients are discharged as waste water, which is one of the major source of pollution. Chemical pulping is the main source for air emissions in the pulp and paper industry, mainly due the fact that chemical pulping is operating at higher temperatures.
Existing mechanisms of pulp and paper manufacturing require a large amount of water to be processed, leading to wastewater being discharged at a rate of 20-100 cubic meters per metric ton of product (Gavrilescu et al., 2008).
Wastewater is high in biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), total suspended solids, chemical oxygen demand (COD), nitrogen and phosphorus. In addition, chlorinated organic compounds such as dioxins, furans, and other absorbable organic halides (AOX), that represent 0-4 kg/t of pulp are also generated using existing paper manufacturing processes.
In addition, pulp manufacturing generates large quantity of solid wastes including wood waste (mainly bark), sodium salts from recovery boiler, pulp screening rejects and dregs and grit from causticizing plant. In addition, ashes are generated during burning of wood wastes and sludges (Gavrilescu, 2004).
Even fundamentally, rise in global environmental issues such as deforestation due to dependence on wood for pulp and paper manufacturing, air and water pollution, climate change, overflowing landfills, and clear cutting have all led to increased government regulations. There is now a trend towards reducing water use, greenhouse gas emissions, fossil fuel consumption, and clean up its impacts on local water supplies and air pollution. One of the key objectives in recent times has been achieving sustainability in the pulp and paper industry to reduce clear cutting in order to minimize the deforestation of trees. Conventional paper can only be recycled few times and each time for manufacturing paper, fresh paper needs to be added, increasing demand of wood, leading to more cutting of trees and further speeding up deforestation.
There is therefore a need in the art for a completely unique method to manufacture paper that helps overcome at least the above-mentioned issues and disadvantages in existing methods, including the raw material used for manufacturing paper. Thus, there is also an urgent unmet need of an alternative material to obtain paper, a material which is sustainable resource with lesser harmful environmental effects and more particularly an alternate resource for making paper which is easily available especially in dry and arid desert regions.